Intervention or Collaboration? INTERVENTION OR COLLABORATION? Redesigning Information and Communication Technologies for Development dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor at Maastricht University on the authority of the Rector Magnificus, Prof. Dr. Rianne M. Letschert in accordance with the decision of the Board of Deans to be defended in public on Tuesday 15 December 2020 at 13.00 hours by anna bon supervisors: Prof. Dr. Sally Wyatt Prof. Dr. Hans Akkermans (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) assessment committee: Prof. Dr. Wiebe E. Bijker (Chairman) Prof. Dr. Cyrus C.M. Mody Prof. Dr. Adele Botha (University of South Africa) Prof. Dr. Roel Wieringa (University of Twente) Graduate School of Arts & Social Sciences Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Maastricht University SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2020–34 The research reported in this thesis has been carried out under the auspices of SIKS, the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems. To Bruno, Paloma and Leeuw colophon Intervention or Collaboration? Redesigning Information and Communication Technologies for Development copyright: c Anna Bon 2020 published by: Pangea, Amsterdam December 2020, in the series of W4RA books https://w4ra.org cover design: Anna Bon typography style adapted after: André Miede http://www.miede.de isbn paperback 978-90-78289-24-1 isbn pdf-version 978-90-78289-25-8 nur 980 SUMMARY How can we design and build digital technologies to support people in poor and low- resource environments to achieve their objectives? And how can we do this inclusively and ethically, while considering the complexity of their living and working environ- ments? This is the central question in my research. One of the grand challenges of international development cooperation is to make digital technologies available for social and economic development of poor regions of the world. To achieve this goal – often referred to as ICT4D – knowledge and tech- nologies are transferred from wealthy countries to poor regions. Nevertheless, these efforts have often turned out unsuccessful and unsustainable, despite large budgets and numerous projects in prestigious international development programs. Mismatch between the transferred technologies and the target environment is a re- current problem of ICT4D projects. Improvement can be achieved, for example, by involving end-users in the design process. International development organizations are aware of this, and terms like "co-creation", "participation" and "user-oriented de- sign" have nowadays become part of the international development discourse. How- ever, real co-creation and user-centered design are incompatible with unidirectional transfer of technologies and knowledge (this is how ICT4D is commonly organized, in conventional international development). Moreover, the term participation becomes meaningless, in the light of externally formulated development goals. One key question to ask is: what do the envisaged users want? Remarkably, many ICT4D projects, programs and policies do not really ask and (field) investigate this question, which can only be answered by extensive research on-the-ground. This thesis describes the search for and the design of an alternative approach to ICT4D. Ten years of field and action research with partners in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana have led to a collaborative, iterative and adaptive approach, dubbed "ICT4D 3.0". What is novel of this alternative approach and how does it answer the central question? First of all, ICT4D 3.0 is a practical approach for critical investigation and action. It consists of a reconfigurable framework that guides the design and development of information systems, bridging the knowledge gap between developers and users to unlock and integrate different domains of (global, local, indigenous, academic, non- academic) knowledge. It targets complex, resource-constrained environments where many (for the ICT developers and researchers) unfamiliar conditions or obstacles may exist. It fosters innovative capacity and learning in action, bringing together people with different backgrounds and perspectives in trans-disciplinary and multicultural teams. It is socio-technical, result-oriented, focused on the objectives of the stakehold- vii ers and the requirements of their livelihoods. This approach has been validated in various different contexts, by users, ICT developers, practitioners and students. Second, ICT4D 3.0 contributes to a theoretical understanding of ICT4D as a process of networked innovation in complex (adaptive) systems. The underlying idea is that knowledge sharing and diffusion of innovations are complex (non-linear) dynamic processes that evolve and propagate through social networks in rather unpredictable ways, whereby innovation works out differently, depending on context, and whereby contextual (e.g. social, cultural, environmental, political) factors play an important role, and have to be considered. This theoretical framework explains the effectiveness of a collaborative, iterative, adaptative approach in ICT4D. Third, ICT4D 3.0 is built on ethical principles. When reflecting on the meaning and purpose of digital development, it is clear that digital development is not only a question of technology and practice, and collaboration is more than a prerequisite for successful technological innovation and long-term sustainability: collaboration is a fundamental human, ethical value. Therefore, as a reflective practitioner, one has to ask oneself whose interests one is actually looking after, which goals one is trying to achieve, where they come from, how power and political issues play a role and which core values are at stake. This makes ICT4D 3.0 into a democratic process of di- alogue and deliberation, in which all voices are heard, in which the local context and complexity are central, and in which development goals are determined by the users themselves and not imposed from outside. In this light, the approach proposed in this thesis takes a value position and can be considered a decolonial approach, striving for democracy, emancipation, autonomy and social and economic betterment. Field experience shows that ICT4D can be a meaningful, collaborative, networked process of knowledge sharing, driven by local initiatives, realizing change for the better, in a complex world. CONTENTS i exploring the problem 1 1 intervention or collaboration? 3 1.1 Be collaborative! 3 1.2 What do the "unconnected" want? 4 1.3 Brief history of this research 5 1.4 How this thesis is structured 9 1.5 Research design and methodology 14 1.6 Theoretical framework 19 1.7 Positioning this research in the academic landscape 20 1.8 Data collection 27 1.9 Validation of results 28 1.10 Selected publications 29 1.11 Summary 31 2 the logic of interventionism 33 2.1 ICT4D policy and practice 33 2.2 ICT4D as linear innovation 34 2.3 Issues of context 38 2.4 How are goals constructed? 41 2.5 Theoretical framework: network complexity 43 2.6 Diffusion of innovations 50 2.7 Multiple paths to innovation 52 2.8 Summary 54 3 a toolbox of methods for ict4d 57 3.1 Collaboration with users, adaptation to contexts 57 3.2 Participatory paradigms and value-driven research 61 3.3 Pragmatically adapting methods to novel context 63 3.4 Summary and outlook 64 ii constructing operational solutions 67 4 understanding context 69 4.1 First task: explore the context 69 4.2 First field visits to a rural region in the Sahel 70 4.3 Regional context: soil degradation in the Sahel 71 4.4 Context analysis at local and human scales: re-greening in Mali 79 4.5 Lessons learned from the context analysis 85 5 needs assessment and collaborative goal construction 89 ix x contents 5.1 An iterative approach to goals and needs 89 5.2 First iteration: jointly exploring the problem space 90 5.3 Second iteration: jointly defining the solution space 96 5.4 Case: needs’ assessment in Guabuliga, Ghana 96 5.5 Case: needs assessment with farmers in Mali 105 5.6 Case: meteo-services for farmers in Burkina Faso 113 5.7 Summary 122 6 use case and requirements analysis 123 6.1 Use cases and requirements in ICT4D 123 6.2 From unstructured ideas to use cases and requirements 124 6.3 The structured narrative method 128 6.4 Summary 140 7 engineering, deploying, evaluating 141 7.1 The information systems engineering dimension in ICT4D 141 7.2 Case: building systems for farmers in Mali 142 7.3 Context, needs, and user requirements 142 7.4 Engineering the system in a collaborative way 149 7.5 Field deployment 155 7.6 Collaborative impact evaluation 157 7.7 Summary 163 8 sustainability and ict4d 165 8.1 The business modeling dimension in ICT4D 165 8.2 Economic sustainability as a requirement: a business case in rural Mali 166 8.3 A method to assess economic sustainability 166 8.4 Case: developing an ICT service in rural Mali 170 8.5 Evaluation of different possible business models 177 8.6 Reflection 189 8.7 Summary 190 iii reflections 191 9 synthesis: a consistently collaborative framework for ict4d 193 9.1 Considering the full information systems life cycle 193 9.2 Teams and partnerships 193 9.3 Composition of the full ICT research & developing team 196 9.4 A configurable framework 197 9.5 How the framework addresses the concerns of the context 200 9.6 A process model for ICT4D service development 203 9.7 A consistently collaborative framework for ICT4D 205 10 validation of the research outcomes 207 10.1 Utility as external validation 207 10.2 Using the ICT4D framework in different contexts 207 contents xi 10.3 ICT4D 3.0 and Community